Bonghits for Breakfast

Yeah, this is Staind alright. I'm sure some of you have heard of J-CAT, if not, here you go.

"Before Staind, there was J.C.A.T. Comprised of Jon Wysocki, Chris Ballini, Aaron Lewis, and Tori Sands JCAT played a style of music similar to that found in Staind's acoustic tracks (Its Been Awhile, Four Walls, Outside, etc). Sometime in the last couple of years (as Staind gained more and more recognition), one of their performances surfaced; a live set of nine tracks played at Club Infinity in Springfield, MA. Two of the songs performed at Club Infinity are "Its Been Awhile" and "Outside." Outside gives you a better idea of what Aaron means when he said he was always changing the lyrics to it, as its essentially the earliest available version of the song. "Its Been Awhile" remains virtually unchanged on the other hand.

 Although nobody knows for sure, its believed Chris Ballini put the recordings out on the net perhaps to let people know how Aaron & Jon started out.

 At or around the time that JCAT was performing, Aaron and Jon were busy working on Dysfunction. Its not quite clear as to whether or not JCAT existed before Tormented but it is known that Aaron and Chris had an acoustic grunge duo at one time which ran from about 1995 to 1998. As for Jon Wysocki, he played in a short lived funk band by the name of "Defunkt" along side Tori Sands & Chris Ballini."

Yeah, some of the songs on the CD include early versoins of "Outside" and "It's Been Awhile". Also, alot of the songs are very, very softer than Staind.

But anyways, as Aaron says before he plays the song, it's about "A daily habit, for alot of folks." Quite enjoyable that I found this.

Thanks for the article. I love the way this song sounds. I am not too fond of blues music, but Aaron makes everything great.